On YouTube, PLO mocks Netanyahu’s claim he cares about Palestinians

In the age when diplomatic disagreements are played out on social media and global stature is measured in “likes” and “hits,” Palestinian and Israeli leaders are taking to YouTube to publicly attack each other, and hopefully gain internet popularity at the same time.

In the latest attempt, the Palestine Liberation Organization released a clip Monday night mocking a video by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he claims to care more about the Palestinian people than its leaders do.

In its two-minute video titled “Netanyahu Uncensored,” the PLO Department of Culture and Information takes footage of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from last month, in which he slams alleged siphoning of millions of dollars from charity organizations to Hamas, adding canned laughter and splicing in images of heavy-handed Israeli soldiers.

“I’m going to say something now that some of you will not believe. But I’m going to say it anyway because it’s true,” Netanyahu said in the clip, which was posted to his official Facebook and YouTube accounts on August 11.

“I, the prime minister of Israel, care more about Palestinians than their own leaders do. Israel cares more about Palestinians than their own leaders do,” he continues. “That sounds incredible, right? But consider the following,” he can been seen saying to the camera before the PLO-edited clip cuts to footage of IDF troops.

After a minute of clips showing house demolitions and apparent beatings and shootings of unarmed protesters, the video ends with images of injured Palestinian children accompanied by the audio of Netanyhau saying, “Let that sink in.”

Netanyahu’s original video was posted after two Palestinians who work for World Vision and the United Nations were charged by Israel of aiding the Islamist terror organization Hamas.

In his two-minute clip, Netanyahu didn’t mention Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the elected head of the Palestinian government, or Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. Instead he went after Hamas, the Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip and is at odds with Abbas’s Fatah party.

“Hamas used this stolen money to build a war machine to murder Jews,” he said. “Innocent and impoverished Palestinians were denied vital aid supplied from nations around the world.”

“Imagine, just imagine, where we might all be if Palestinian leaders cared as much about helping their own people as they did about hurting our people. The Palestinian people deserve better,” Netanyahu went on. “And today, I express my deepest sympathy to innocent Palestinians and those well-meaning nations who generously donated money to help them.”

Netanyahu’s video was one of a number of viral attempts in which he talks directly to the camera, speaking, usually in English, about a current affairs issue.

In the first, which came after June’s deadly nightclub shooting in Orlando, Netanyahu called on the international community to “stand together with the LGBT community” saying that the attack was not an isolated incident and slamming homophobic practices carried out by Islamic terrorist groups and countries across the Middle East.

Since then, videos have been made about a terrorist attack in the West Bank town of Kiryat Arba in which 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel was stabbed to death, Jerusalem’s gay pride march, steps for peace for Abbas, a new government program to fund development in the Israel Arab community, and a Palestinian father telling Israeli soldiers to shoot his own son.

In total, the seven videos, some of which have also been released in Hebrew, have received over 40 million views.